Exploring new tools to add to my toolbox

Reclaiming Bearings From 3D Printed Parts: Round 2

Now that PETG is up and running smoothly on my printer, it was put to work reprinting all Sawppy parts so I could replace the existing PLA parts with PETG parts. Retiring parts means throwing away things like heat-set inserts, but the bearings could be recovered. I originally designed a few holes into the parts to make bearing removal easier, but I’ve since realized those holes are unnecessary. Plastic — both PLA and PETG — are soft enough for the bearings to flex and move inside their assigned positions. This flex allows us to work bearings loose by twisting a shaft inside the bearing.

I tried describing this with words but my vocabulary really isn’t up to the task. Here’s a video to illustrate the technique.

This works well enough I think those bearing removal assist holes I added before are now unnecessary. I’ll probably remove the holes on my next revision of rover parts so it looks less like a piece of Swiss cheese.